


Language Barrier on a People Carrier

by lily_l_bell



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Elevator AU, F/M, Keith is korean, Lance is an assistant dance instructor, Lance speaks Spanish, M/M, Straight up fluff, and adopted, assumed language barriers, by Shiro's family, keith is a dental assistant, mention of shallura, possibility of accidental boners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 23:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7911706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_l_bell/pseuds/lily_l_bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith speaks English just fine, but he still likes speaking Korean when he can. When he leaves work and takes the elevator down from the seventh floor he liked to talk to Shiro about what's for dinner in his mother tongue. Because of this it seems he's never spoken an English word in front of the dance instructor from the sixth floor that rides the elevator with him every day, leading the other to believe that there was such thing as a private conversation in an elevator.</p><p>+++++++++++++++++++<br/>Elevator AU, not sorry. Prompted by <a href="http://klvnce.tumblr.com/"> klvnce on tumblr. </a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Language Barrier on a People Carrier

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: THIS WORK IS UNBETA'D AND WRITTEN AT 2 AM IT IS GARBO.

There was something about another language shared by two people that gave a public conversation a bit more privacy or intimacy. For Keith that was Korean, which his omniglot, adoptive older brother also happen to speak.

Keith would finish the last of the paperwork for the dentist, get the office cleaned up a bit, then lock up on his way out. The dental office was on the seventh floor and so, every night, while he waited for the slowest elevator on Earth to reach him, he would call Shiro. They had started speaking Korean on these calls to keep the tongue sharp for them both and as Keith didn't tend to encounter many other Korean speakers on his way out of the building it felt like he and Shiro had a little secret game.

Every night he boarded the elevator on the seventh floor and would have to stop at the sixth for the same passenger. Keith hadn’t gotten his name yet, he kept thinking of him as The Dancer... Because he always wore a Sanchez School of Latin Dance t-shirt or tank top; the required uniform of the employees who worked at the dance studio on the sixth floor. The Dancer look like he belonged on the cover of a Latin dance music album. His warm complexion was peppered with freckles and his dark hair fell in downey strands, clipped close to his head. He always wore ear buds but whatever he listened to his hip seem to unconsciously switch to it from time to time. There was a couple times Keith had wanted to say hello, they did ride the same elevator for five minutes, five days a week, after all. But there was a social rule about ear buds; you should have a better reason to pester someone wearing them then just wanting to say hi. Shiro's girlfriend, Allura, could barely go anywhere on the subway without someone breaking this rule towards her. That, and he was normally talking to Shiro at the time and it was usually how he found out if he needed to get anything for dinner on the way home. Sometimes The Dancer would shuffle around the box, sometimes he would look at Keith. He never scowled, frankly The Dancer’s cupid bow lips looked like they were far more used to smiling so even his resting face was pleasant if not a little haughty.

One night, like every night, The Dancer boarded on the sixth floor while Keith was trying to get Shiro to be decisive about what they'd have for dinner (the man could make amazingly hard decisions under pressure, a firefighter had to, but he was such an indecisive shit about picking what was for dinner.) The Dancer’s phone began to hum in his hands. Keith felt drawn to listen in.

The Dancer made sure the little microphone on his ear buds was on before he began talking. "’Sup Pidge?" The Dancer asked, taking out one earbud so he could still move his hips in small circles to the elevator music. "Yeah, just finish closing up the studio with my mom. She said she’d put the last of the stuff away so I wouldn't miss Hunk. I don't want to take the subway to class tonight." 

Shiro had said something. Embarrassed to be eavesdropping Keith feigned static to force Shiro to repeat himself. He picked up where he left off on the dinner conversation. Fucking aye, if Shiro didn't decide soon it was going to be shrimp Maruchan instant Ramen... Because Keith actually LIKED instant noodles and Shiro frankly didn't. Keith was building up to the ultimatum when The Dancers conversation caught his attention again.

"Who's talking to me?! No one, it's just that guy I told you about. Yeah, every day. ‘Hello Nurse’ is right! No one's ass should look that fine in scrubs. Haha! No, naw. It's cool. _Jefe no habla Inglés, comprendes?_ Pffffft! I know. I wish I knew enough Chinese or Korean or whatever he saying to let him know booty be FOIN!"

Holy Shit?!!? Was The Dancer talking about him!? Booty be fine WTF OMG!!!?????

The Dancer continued on with his conversation, unaware of the existential crisis Keith was having three feet away from him. Keith used Korean (WTF? So obviously not Chinese! They were incredibly different!) to have a sense of an isolated world when he spoke to Shiro. He had somehow created the impression that The Dancer had the same for English. For fuck’s sake Keith even knew enough Spanish to know that The Dancer just said that Keith didn’t speak English! He spoke English great wtf!? Keith thought back and realized he’d literally never spoken a single English word in the man’s presence. How could he fix that now that he heard that **HIS BOOTY BE FINE!?**

The Dancer was loudly cackling into his microphone while Keith quietly told Shiro that he would have to call him back, it’d give the big doofus some more time to ponder on the pros and cons of just ordering take out. The elevator was rapidly approaching the basement level, where the parking garage was, Keith gulped. He had to say something, anything! But how did one just go, ‘Oh hi, yeah, sorry. I actually have less of an accent than you when I speak English and yeah the knowledge that you have been checking out my ass every night while you do that sinful thing with your hips certainly isn’t going to make me tent in my scrubs, which, oh, fyi, happen to hide nothing.’ Though, taking a quick self inspection, Keith was rather proud of himself for not actually defiling his scrubs in that way… yet. Shit, it was already the first floor and he hadn’t decided what to say! Was this what Shiro felt like when faced with three different Chinese restaurants to order fucking sesame chicken from!?

The elevator reached its final destination, the doors groaning open as the bell chimed to signal that they had arrived at their desired floor. The Dancer bid his friend farewell and, hiking his messenger bag up higher on his shoulder, moved to exit the carriage. It was now or fucking never Keith Gyeong-Shirogane! Running purely on impulse his hand shot out and grabbed ahold of the Dancer’s thin, delicate-feeling wrist. He tried very hard not to squeeze as if his life depended on it. “Wait!” He began, catching the normally graceful man as he made an ungainly spin to avoid his shoulder being yanked out of its socket by the sudden, firm stop. “Um… I… I heard what you said. Um. About my scrubs.” The Dancer’s sun-kissed face paled until it almost rivalled Keith’s own, well, it did for a minute anyway. A few seconds later he turned a sickly green, as though ready to vomit.

“Um! I just wanted to say,” Keith pressed on, ready to dig his own grave on this, “That you look really nice in your studio’s uniform too. I… You look very good, in the red I mean, but the blue one is my favorite. Is there… um… any chance that might be the one you’ll be wearing tomorrow?” He asked, afraid to let go of the other man’s wrist and afraid that he did not have the sense of common courtesy and decency to do so. 

“Uh-” The Dancer groaned, as though the simple English was taking longer to click in his head. “T-tomorrow everyone will be in costume… for, um, for a dress rehearsal. B-but my costume is blue!” He stammered, as though suddenly all the cool confidence he’d had on the phone with his friend had melted into a warm, bubbling puddle at his feet. It was really too damn cute.

“Oh, ha, I guess, yeah actually that was a silly question, the practice is closed tomorrow. I wouldn’t normally be here.” Keith stammered, it was true, he forgot that the dentist had scheduled the next day off.

“The actual competition costs money, to buy tickets, but, um, if you’d like to see the the routine, well, um, My mom’s- I mean, Senora Sanchez’ student’s routines, you could still come to the building tomorrow. Just… maybe get off the elevator a floor early? Around noon?” The Dancer offered, not pulling his hand away. The doors of the elevator had closed around them, pressing out the sound and noise from the garage outside. It was like they were having a public conversation that had become more private or intimate, the way his did when he spoke Korean, but this time he was speaking his second language and it still felt familiar. 

“I’d… actually like that.” Keith hesitated. “Um, who should I say invited me?”

“Uh, duh, me?”

Keith raised a brow.

“Oh, okay, sorry yeah. I just realized I never knew your name either… even though it’s hanging from a lanyard around your neck.” The Dancer motioned to Keith’s scan badge with his photo from the first day of work and his name. “I’m Lance, Lance Sanchez.” The Dancer, no, Lance said, twisting his wrist out of Keith’s hold in order to grasp his hand instead. Giving it a firm shake.

Keith chuckled, “Nice to meet you Lance Lance Sanchez.” He joked. “I’m Keith Gyeong-Shirogane.” They stood like that for probably too long, just clasping the other’s hand. Until a car horn from just outside the elevator started them both out of their revery. Lance jumped nearly three feet in the air and came down hard. “Shit that’s my ride fuck! It was really nice to meet you please actually come tomorrow it’d be great!” Lance blathered with barely a pause to breath as he pressed the open-door button and bolted straight out of the lift towards a minivan in a revolting shade of earwax gold. Lance was greeted by a large man and a small… it was either a child or a gremlin or both… waiting for him in the car and snickering away. 

The intimacy of the elevator had been nice; it’d been a small little world. However, Keith nearly tittered to himself as he made his way to his motorcycle to head home. He was on cloud nine. The Dancer presently known as Lance was now going to become a part of Keith’s bigger world outside the elevator. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Shiro, slipping back into the comfortable Korean, as he told his brother what kind of day was in store for him tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> [If you liked this work don't be afraid to check out my blog; ladygrefist on tumblr. I reblog klance stuff and frequently make art and even open klance art prompts often. ](http://ladygreyfist.tumblr.com/)


End file.
